In Damascus, Virginia, near access to the Virginia Creeper trail, is a bed and breakfast known as the Millsap-Baker Estate. The house is more of a museum than a place of lodging. Each room brims with old pipes and depression glass. The breakfast area resembles something from Harry Potter, and the host and hostess tell stories every morning over home-cooked breakfast with 4 kinds of jam.
Outside of the Victorian ediface of the Millsap-Baker Estate is a large Ginko tree surrounded in a halo of yellow confetti leaves, perfectly shaped like wings. I printed my Ginko leaf in red because yellow does not contrast enough with paper, though it is a mixed red. In this color, it more resembles a Japanese fan of some kind.
The shape took me so thoroughly that I carved it into a woodblock and attempted to make cards from it. I'm still learning to manage this level of detail.
The reference for this piece is a known work of fine art: a photograph by Peter Mitchell, a lorry driver who traversed West Yorkshire and occasionally snapped photos. The piece is titled Eric Massheder, Leeds, (1975) . Eric is the man in the doorway, a drippings refinery worker who posed in his home, adjacent (really, attached) to the refinery where he worked for 12 years. Eric woke up in his home in the morning, walked one room (or so) over, and began his shift. I have changed and omitted a few details for the sake of composition as usual. I've now been working from home for about four years, and I make a similar commute without stepping outdoors. My house even resembles Eric's a bit, though there's no factory nearby. I enter my workplace by transferring a USB cable, which joins all of my input and output devices from my personal computer to my work laptop. I stoop under my desk to make the transfer, so possibly a similar amount of exercise is involved—the digital equiva...
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